The excitement of tomorrow’s take off took away his sleep. He tossed and turned in bed. Everything made it hard to close eyes: the hum of distant AC, the fan noise of the vents, the squeak of the bed, the green diodes of the clock. The thoughts sprinted through his head – he fantasized about returning, the crowds welcoming them. Irrationally he was met with familiar faces of friends and family even though none of those people will be alive when they come back. The mission is so long that even their return was uncertain and here he was letting the fantasies steal his sleep. He could have taken some mild sleeping aid but that seemed excessive – after all he’ll get plenty of rest over the next few decades. The TV coverage spoke non-stop about tomorrow’s take off intercutting simplistic one liners from their interviews. He didn’t want to remember this night like that. He turned the screen off and looked out the window – it was late but some kids still ran around the enclosed swimming pool few stories below – where are their parents, he though briefly before admitting that he doesn’t really care. He put on some clothes and left the room. The chance of meeting too many people was slim, yet he still changed the hair and eye color not to be bothered by some fans of space exploration looking to meet their idols late at night.

In this space people could recognize him even though he would never get to experience them on a human level. There was him, the hero of future generations and there was them, the mortals left behind. People looked at them like heroes because they were to come back with knowledge of the future. Somehow the fact that they would never be back in their lifetime to tell of the future didn’t bother anyone. The horizon of discovery stretched so far, it left human comprehension four life spans away. In everyone’s head the astronauts were mythical super-human figures. When people meet a “god,” despite the best intentions, they change. On the two extremes, they either project too much hope onto him waiting for a sort of miracle to enlighten their future or they try to bring one mortal self to the same echelon occupied by the holiness – they try to kill him as a god. God’s death isn’t as important as their own skewed perception of power. By taking a god’s life they assume to be his equal, forgetting that in his godliness, his physical body that they have destroyed, is an afterthought. His godliness exists beyond the body and that doesn’t end with the bullet leaving their pistol’s barrel. Since their selection and the selection’s confirmation, the astronauts have been warned that their life will be in constant danger. The security was always extremely tight so the Poet knew that with his excursion, he’s breaking the security protocol. The Mission Control constantly monitors his body’s function and soon enough their reading of those functions will not match with those of a man laying in bed of his hotel room – soon they will realise that he’s gone.  

He tried to pay attention to the surrounding to somehow etch it in his memory knowing it will be in vain as significant parts of the memories will disappear during their prolonged sleep. This was the last moment for him to take in this world – he’ll never see it again as it is now. Walking through the empty corridors he tried to take in the textures. Somehow he suspected that those concrete walls of the hotel’s hallway are destined for a landfill long before his return. The large hotel chain probably will belong to a distant past, the building – doubtful if it will still be standing here hundreds of years from now – will change hands many times, the decor updated until it will be more advantageous to tear the building down and build a new one. Hotels always fascinated him with their intermix of personal with deeply alien. The corporate machine understands the need to introduce just enough homeliness that people will not feel totally alienated and yet not enough as people would start questioning that they are in safe hands of a corporate machine. Too homely interior and people’s comfort turns to anxiety as we are forced to shape our own reality. Sometimes we don’t want to belong to ourselves afraid that the real self will destroy the mythical figure we imagine when looking in the mirror. He knew this is one of the reasons why he always avoided mirrors skimming over his face as if deeper look in his own eyes might betray something he worked hard to avoid.

This part of the hotel was secure but he knew that outside of security zone the sharks: journalists, fans, and all sort of whackos are waiting. To leave means to escape their attention. He really didn’t want to talk to anyone tonight, done giving the media interviews, fedup with overzealous fans asking to take a small personal effect of theirs on the journey to the planet. He was done with people. When a mass-culture event occur, the sensible minds stay in the background and thus you have to work very hard not to lose your respect for humanity. The worst in people comes out and you, to be quite frank, start hating people. He’ suppose to be one of humanity’s representative to the Others, but it’s hard to bear the chest proud when the humanity doesn’t hold itself to any standards. He was a miser when young but learned early on that happy face opens up doors. Since his youth he’s learned to fake this happiness and it was this masterful act that got him the spot as a crew member on this mission. With time this performance was more and more easy but deep down he knew of his hypocrisy. He hated people and what they stood for. He hated their banality, their intellectual infancy, their hypocrisy and even more, their unawareness of that hypocrisy within themselves. Probably a motivating factor to give up this life was to get away. You go on the journey to the distant planet and with that accomplishment you permanently separate self from the mortals.

He walked down to the utility entrance and used a keypass “liberated” two days earlier from the cleaning maid. The red diode turns green unlocking the door and letting him into the hidden bowels of the hotel – the corridors only accessible to the janitors, maids and all sort of, what the system considers, invisible workers that corporate machine tries to hide from quests. He took the stairs avoiding the elevator. He heard someone talking on the phone two floors below. Cursing his luck, he stopped to listen – the person didn’t hear him coming down. She was crying. He was intruding on some deep personal drama. He opened the staircase door and slammed it with a bang then slowly but loudly started walking downstairs. Whoever the person was, she heard him, quickly leaving the staircase clearing the path for his escape. He felt bad for her – under the layers of calcified skin that protects against over-emotional sentimentality, he cared. Maybe deep down he had some love for people after all. They have minds capable of complex intellectual pursuits, so few end up using their abilities. Aren’t they at least partially responsible for their shortfall, or should he accept that nature, giving everyone freedoms of choice, also made them for the most part intellectually feeble? And if this intellectual infancy is so biologically natural, how can he hate people for the fault that’s outside of their control? Why should the feelings of despair this unseen woman showed on the phone be any less “wrong” than her possible intellectual fallibility? If both thoughts and emotions come from nature, shouldn’t both be considered equal? It’s as if the moment we differentiate ourselves from animals, we’ve forsaken the common symbiosis between intellect and nature. We value the instinctual nature differently than intellect because we pretend to be more in charge of the thoughts than feeling thus forgiving others for succumbing to nature and its instincts.